I point this out only because I was there, and attending a Great Alaska Shootout because I had nothing particularly better to do for Thanksgiving still ranks among the more ridiculous expressions of basketball geekdom. Other notables on the court for the 2005 GAS Championship: Renaldo Balkman.

The Rockets expect to trim their roster and their bloated collection of forwards on Wednesday by dealing Steve Novak to the Los Angeles Clippers, an individual with knowledge of the deal said Tuesday.

The Rockets will receive future draft considerations, likely the right to switch places with the Clippers in a second round. It is unclear which season that would be because both teams have future second round commitments.

The Rockets selected Novak, 25, in the second round of the 2006 season. A 6-10 forward, Novak averaged 2.7 points in 70 NBA games, making 44.1 percent of his shots and 42.7 percent of his 3-pointers.

The highlight of his two seasons with the Rockets was likely the buzzer-beating 3-pointer he made to defeat the Kings during the Rockets’ 22-game winning streak last season.

Ready for something interesting? Novak's PER last season in 266 minutes of basketball was 17.20. Yes, a fair number of those minutes were in temps d'ordures, but Novak is a big, lethal shooter, and has a surprisingly good handle for a guy who's 6' 10". He's sort of the anti-Radmonovic: Heady, good court awarness [all the clichéd attributes of a coach's son], but not much athletically.

If you combined Brian Skinner and Steve Novak, you'd have one really good power forward.

Posted Wednesday, October 29 at 3:20PM

Good news!

We have launched a new ClipperBlog.com site! You are currently on our old system & are viewing an archived page. We will continue to keep all 670 posts from our first 3 years on this archive site. Soon we will be closing the comments for each of these older posts.

I reaally really like this move and the decision making of the front office.

Getting Steve Novak helps the team in two instance.

1) The team has another option to spread the floor.

2) This we definitely light a fire for Tim Thomas to play harder and smarter to keep his 2nd string spot off the bench. Hopefully we will see Thomas do all the things we know he can do like post up down low and rebound more.

From the front office view I like how they are acquiring players without giving up anything. Swapping pick is nothing to really be that concerned about. Which leaves them picks in hand just in case they want to go after some big fish in the coming weeks.

Don't underestimate the power of draft picks, it can make teams give up on star players.

This is better than having dickau or smush takn the deep three with 2 seconds on the shot clock.

This has been mentioned on here plenty of times but I will say it again; It is nice to see the front office wheeln and dealn this summer.Although they are not aquiring Superstar talent , it is an upgrade over last season and I am feeling good about our bench.

I really like this guy and the potential he can bring. I would like to see him come off the bench second string, but I don't think we can afford to bump anyone from second string because they all have potential. His main option is play big when Thomas is slumping.

We can really say the Clippers08-09 team has depth. More important variety in depth outside shooters, slashers, defenders, low-post threats defensively, and youth mixed in with veterans.
Love to see Novak get big mintues with Taylor and Jordan in the preseason so we can see some of their potential if they get called up.